As We Walk
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.: ~ Romans 8:1
I assume that all my readers are Christian. If you are not, I have no idea what to say to you.
Sorry.
This week the Lord told me to draw a map of my neighborhood and then rename certain corners with specific places in Spain so that when I went for walks around my village and prayed for my neighbors I would begin to also pray over whole regions of Spain.
I don’t know how to engage with unbelievers.
Let’s imagine for a brief second that God divides us into five categories as we walk with Him for the purpose of lifting one another up and furthering the Church for His glory: missionary, teacher, pastor, prophet and evangelist. Let’s further imagine that you, my reader, are in one of those categories.
You’ve probably experienced feelings of condemnation because of your own past sin or because your Christian values were not precisely the same as someone else’s who you happened to be walking next to.
Christ Jesus does not condemn us.
The Accuser does. He whispers that your writing is not enough, that your organization skills are subpar, that your efforts are futile. You languish in fear. The Enemy comes against you with 20,000 doubts. He tempts us to step aside, away from the path.
We become weary.
Maybe you’ve hidden. Maybe you wished to escape the burden of your own personal pursuit of Jesus. The strengthening exercise toward Responsibility and Order is hard work. Maybe you don’t realize that it’s in the journey that you are receiving the right to fling back the lies into the face of the Blasphemer. Not by your own power, which failed, fails, will fail. No! You have overcome, we have won in Christ Jesus. At the Cross, from the grave, in the Resurrection, we will arrive triumphantly!
Come on. Get up. I’ll walk next to you for a bit.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus..
This is why we need Christian community. When I sinned I damaged your heart. When I was weak you lifted me up. Our friendship helps us both to grow. I cannot become a mature believer without community.
But I will judge myself too harshly if I fail to see which part of the Body I belong to.
If I judge myself by my teacher friend’s proclivities and abilities then I will at once fall apart in despair.( My posts about Romans are not well planned. My “lessons” are rambling.)
If I had been gifted with teaching then I would have a passion for explaining the details like who Paul was, the world he lived in, the views and cultural attitudes of his day. If I were a teacher type of person, then I’d need to do a deep dive into who he was and explain something clearly for you.
I hope you haven’t been expecting that.
That’s what Dana (@danadosto) does over at her blog, The Dostoevsky Bookclub. Her explanations and insights are worth gold for anyone planning on tackling The Brothers Karamazov. She’s a consummate teacher.
Christians gifted with teaching are spectacularly interesting to me but if I judged myself by their standards I’d crumple under the weight of those expectations. I cannot be mentored by a teacher or I will feel a constant misalignment in my spirit.
I’m not a teacher.
I am missionary gifted ( I don’t have the office or role of Missionary, just the gifting) and I have an overflowing heart for the initial planting phase of the Church among all sorts of people groups, a gift that springs up to empower leaders.
Surrounded by missionary minds, I can relax -and breathe- and feel at home. But I never saw myself as belonging to that category so I have tried to fit in with all the others for years.
What type of leaders do you need to be surrounded by to be able to breathe?
Practically what does it mean to write on Substack through a book of the Bible, like Romans, as a missionary-gifted Christian rather than a teacher-gifted Christian? Well, I had no idea until I got this far and did it. Obedience is defined as proper submission to authority. Practically it means listening in my prayer time and then doing what He tells me to do.
I’m enthralled by you. I’m not sitting in judgment. The work of my life is to be in community with other Christians. Come on, let’s walk a little bit.
Walking With Christ
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” ~ Romans 8:1
Maybe you don’t see yourself as a leader? Maybe you don’t realize that the goal of your life is to equip the Church? Maybe you aren’t sure which category you fit in either?
But you are walking!
I see you.
“Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it says,
“When He ascended on high,
He led captive a host of captives,
And He gave gifts to men.”
(Now this expression, “He ascended,” what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.) And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” ~Ephesians 4
The Gifts
Apostles are missionaries. (They exist now, male and female. They don’t have authority over the other gifts. You were taught incorrectly. We just stopped using the word apostolos and started using the word missionary. I’m not going into the full explanation of why that’s true so you’ll have to either believe me, read Don Dent’s book The Ongoing Role of Apostles in Missions, or disagree. From henceforth I will refer to them as missionaries since you’re more comfortable with that word.)
Missionaries feel pressed forward to go places where the Church is not established (like in online communities or third world countries) and then they empower leaders everywhere they go. They’re not allowed by God to ever take credit for one iota of what they do, because it is after all for His glory that they do it. Their besetting sin is lust. They crave recognition and can never get enough. In order to walk with Christ they have to learn how to rest instead of crave. They have to be willing to surrender even their thirst itself. Why? Because peace and holiness are in the Presence of God.
The habit that marks a missionary is not their ability to uncover their ruined reputation but to give glory to God and uphold His reputation above all else. I think David in Scripture is a picture of what it takes to be a missionary. He never did see the temple completed but he empowered a lot of leaders. If you really want to support your friend who is a missionary, pray for them to not give into the temptation to enjoy lusting for something they don’t have.
Pastors are shepherds, nurturing the sick, the old, the young. They gather, create an atmosphere of harmony, welcome the hesitant, and readily forgive slights. They are eager to have all their “children” in one place sitting around a table. They grieve the sins of the world, the lack of community spirit, the falling away of the Church. Their medicine is laughter.
Christians with this gift are men and women who walk with the spiritual balm of gentleness and apply it often. Their hospitality knows no bounds. They struggle with and often avoid fasting, asceticism, simplicity of opinion, and the subtle rituals of self-discipline that provide health to themselves. Accused by the enemy of having pride, they are the most humble among us serving in places we don’t notice, washing the feet of the feeble and burying the dead. They do not balk from walking to the very end, in the dark, bowed over. I think Job in Scripture is a picture of a Pastor. He persevered and went without and was cursed by the very “church” he loved. If you want to support your pastor-gifted-friends learn how to shut up and give them time to speak.
Prophets are artists who see the truth but tell it slant, in order for Truth to be heard. Prophet/artists are often doomed to be misunderstood or disbelieved if they only share woe. Their uniquely personal crucifix is to surrender their vision – the obvious-to-them rifts in reality– to Christ and be transformed, from bitterness to blessing. Called to intercede before speaking they plead the forgiveness -the Blood of the Lamb- over the people in their lives.
These prophetic voices are Christian writers, painters, sculptors and poets whose tongues are wholly reined in to be used for God’s infinite kindness, the kindness which brings men to repentance. They are often tempted to tear down their fellow men or describe in severe terms the sin that they can so easily perceive. Instead, they choose to build with exhortation the treasure of the gospel they see in the hearts of men, a sight they see well only after asking for God’s eyes and closing their own fleshly ones. Balaam in Scripture is a lesson for prophets. Pray that they will forgive people, have the patience to develop their craft and the courage to reveal it to the world, which desperately needs Truth.
Teachers are specific, logical, organized. They communicate with clear intent and judge based on merit. Their inner drive is to make a way for you, who they firmly believe in, to be able to understand a thing you don’t currently understand. They recoil and feel actual physical pain when they encounter poor methods of communication.
They feel pride in excellence and so, in His infinite wisdom, God allows them to suffer humility by being called to minister to the dumbest of us and then finally after a great deal of effort they come to realize that they were teaching themselves all along. A person with the gift of teaching is a great boon to any community wherever they minister, wherever they take the time to explain in detail a subject that will benefit us. Solomon joined himself to too many curiosities but that was his only downfall. He was a wonderful teacher. The whole nation is blessed by them when they are given the opportunity to do what they do best. To support your teacher friend, just ask to be taught.
Evangelists are … well.
Here I have to stop because while I have learned how to walk next to and love the first four I have not yet valued the fifth. I can’t explain evangelists. I have avoided them.
Walking Together
I’m walking with you while reading Romans. That means I’m talking to you about my life while we study the Bible, together.
“So then, brothers and sisters, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— for if you are living in accord with the flesh, you are going to die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
I am under obligation. I have a duty to serve God and to love His people. That means all His people. My sister-in-Christ who always allows me the opportunity to learn for myself is gifted with teaching. My friend who wears herself out for the brokenhearted in her community has a pastor gifting.
But I have no friends who are evangelists. I have no friends who argue respectfully with unbelievers, so I can’t describe them. This week you’re probably going to realize that you need to rearrange things, things like your Substack feed.
I hope you do it with a heart towards building community.
For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons and daughters of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons and daughters by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.” `Romans 8:12